Cancer-killing ‘grenades’ hit tumours

Microscopic heat-triggered ‘grenades’ have been designed by a team of scientists that can kill targeted tumours.

The ‘grenades’, which will consist of liposomes (fatty spheres that carry materials around the body) will release toxic drugs when their temperature is raised, the intention being to ensure that the drugs only target the tumour, thereby avoiding side-effects.

The team at the Nanomedicine Lab in Manchester are working on the transporting abilities of the fat bubbles to carry the drugs to the tumours.

The liposomes are water-tight at normal body temperature, but become leaky when the temperature is increased to 42C.

Prof Kostas Kostarelos from the University of Manchester, has said “The difficulty is, how do you release them when they reach their target?

“The challenge for us is to try to develop liposomes in such a way that they will be very stable at 37C and not leak any cancer drug molecules and then abruptly release them at 42C.”

The technology has so far been effective in animal experiments, which have shown that in tests on mice, there was a “greater uptake” of drugs using thermal grenades on tumours, and that there was a “moderate improvement” in rates of survival.

There has been discussion on ways to warm the tumours, including heat pads being used to warm the body surface for skin, neck or head cancers, and probes or ultrasound being used to heat tumours inside the body.

The findings of the research will be presented at the National Cancer Research Institute conference next week.

Chairman of the conference, Prof Charles Swanton, said targeted liposomes were a “holy grail of nanomedicine”.

He said “These studies demonstrate for the first time how they can be built to include a temperature control, which could open up a range of new treatment avenues.

“This is still early work but these liposomes could be an effective way of targeting treatment towards cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.”

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Posted by Karen Motley, Paralegal, Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (karenmotley@chadlaw.co.uk ), Medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

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